Monday, September 14, 2009

Death by Brown Rice

My husband for a very long time has been on this gym kick. Now it's grown to eating healthy.I'm all for this but it's slowly killing me.I think I mentioned the scales before.He has to measure out all his food. He logs all his food. He brings the scales everywhere.Everytime I cook something, I need to measure it. Not only do I have to measure it, I have to save the nutrition facts for him. If I don't have nutrition facts (veggies, fruits, etc), it takes him a year and a day to figure it out.It has gotten to the point, I find that I'm a short order cook. I cook TG's meal, DH's meal and then my meal. Why? Because it's easier to give him calculations on his food alone rather than tell him the total of all the food I'm cooking and then divide it equally even if we have the same food. Why? Because my husband is not smarter than a 5th grader when it comes to math. Yes, my husband gets flustered when I say that I've cooked 3/4 cup of rice but that is good for 3 servings for us: 1 for him, 1 for me and 1 for my lunch the next day.The man's brain seizes and his world stops. Anyway, today's slow papercut comes courtesy of Kohinoor Brown Basmati Rice. I have DH the package and he immediately got upset. DH: Great! It's in grams. What am I supposed to do?30 minutes later he exclaims, "I don't mean to be a pain in the ass, but I don't think I can eat this."Let me step aside to give you some backfill.DH doesn't like anything new. He's a finicky eater. It took 7 years for him to finally eat seafood and enjoy it. It helped that it was served at our wedding.When he said he was going to go healthy, I knew this would be a challenge. So when he asked for brown rice, I bought a small 2 lb bag. I didn't want to buy a huge package to find he would not eat it.Well, he does eat it, especially when I make my special brown rice and egg medley. Anyway, last night, he made the last batch of brown rice so I picked up a 5 lb container of Brown Rice.So here I am. It's witching hour (4-6pm for non-parents). I need to feed my child, bathe her and get her ready for bed. DH has said he'd do both after he eats dinner. Mind you, I have not eaten either. And he has the nerve to come out and say he's not going to eat the brown rice.For the first time in my life, I said something only a mother would say and I didn't direct it to my offspring but my spouse."I bought 5 lbs of brown rice. I'm going to cook this rice and you are going to eat it."Usually when we have disagreements he becomes a blockhead and twists the screw tighter but this time, he started to but stopped. I'm guessing something inside told him to back down. I knew he wanted to start more. I saw it in his face. He had a question for me. Usually that question hits me like a two by four but this time, he didn't ask it.Ten minutes later... I"m paraphrasing because I can't bear to write down the lunacy."Well, it just seems to be alot.""What?""The calories.""It's rice. It's going to be alot.""Yeah, but 600!""You're only eating 1/4 cup.""You cook 3/4 of a cup.""3/4 of a cup equals 3 servings for us.""Still how do you calculate 1/4 cup of rice when they give me the nutrition facts for a serving in grams?"Now I know, grams and ounces/cups in regards to volume is like apples and oranges but it's done. It may not be to the tenth but it's done.By this time, my daughter who is tired, cranky and in need of a bath is waddling with what can be described as a 454g of pee in her diaper. If she could, she'd probably change her own diaper at this point."You're not going to give her a bath while I eat, are you? Why can't you wait? You're always in a rush."It's 6pm at this point. TG usually likes to go to bed around this time.I change her diaper and set her down by her toys. She's not having it. She keeps whining and asking for 'Up!' which means she wants me to carry her to do something, usually to bed, to eat or to go outside. I quietly set her down again, grabbed the groceries I had tried to unpack before and walked into my pantry and closed the door.Yes, folks, I looked myself in the pantry. I could hear DH making himself dinner and TG walking towards the pantry but I needed a break.I'm not sure what happened because 5 minutes later, I hear DH giving TG a bath in the bathroom. I step outside and his food is on the dining room table covered.I'd never thought I'd have to find solace in my pantry before.